1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to an amusement device and method, and more particularly to a package device and method for coupling touch and/or motion to sound and/or light.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art is well aware of toys wherein sound or light is produced by manipulation of a part of the toy or by pressing an engagement means electronically coupled thereto. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,378 describes sound-emitting face apparel with multiple selection buttons for the retrieval of various sound signals, and describes an embodiment wherein such signals are rendered in tandem with activation of blinking lights positioned on the apparel. Further, numerous toy trucks have been developed over the centuries which produce audible sound and light upon pressing a part of the toy truck or a control device electronically connected to, or directed at, the same. Likewise, greeting cards which produce sound when opened by the consumer have been known for decades.
For centuries toys and other gifts, have been wrapped in packages for heightening the wonder associated with gift giving. Packages used to surround the gift usually consist of a cardboard box or a paper bag. However, plastic housings, such those approximating the shape of an egg, have also been used to package gifts. Packages used to cover gifts are very often themselves covered with colorful and attractive paper to further heighten the anticipation with respect to the gift inside.
Packaging material has conventionally not been an article of entertainment in itself. The entertainment value from such materials has for the most part eminated from the colorful patterns placed on them. Occassionally entertainment is associated with displacing a portion of a package connected to a accuating device, as for example in the well-known “Jack-in-the-Box.”
U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,796 describes a simulated container which has entertainment value apart from the patterns placed on the container, and apart from any need to displace any portion of the container to activate an actuating device. The simulated container includes a peripheral wall formed of flexible material and houses a device which when actuated causes the container to carry out a bending motion. The container is “simulated” in that it is not actually designed to house an object or gift.
Heretofore, it has not been known in the art to heighten the anticipation of opening a gift by using light or sound generating sources electronically associated with the packaging material used to package the gift without need to displace a portion of the package itself. Rather such sources have been limited to use to incorporation in the gift itself or the card accompanying the gift.